


Playing With Fire

by Kate_Shepard



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: BDSM Scene, Bondage, F/M, Fire, Fluff and Smut, Kepral's Cure, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn, Porn with Feelings, Shameless Smut, Shrios, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 07:17:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6319825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kate_Shepard/pseuds/Kate_Shepard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place during ME3. Thane's Kepral's Syndrome has been cured. Shepard and Thane are in a D/s relationship. She decides to try something new.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Playing With Fire

**Author's Note:**

> BioWare owns the Mass Effect universe and all characters. I just play with it for my own entertainment.

The elevator opened on her deck and Shepard stepped off with a relieved sigh. Hosting a war summit between three races who'd been involved in a thousand-year feud was one of the more difficult things she'd ever done and that was saying a lot. She'd rather be fighting the Reapers head-on than stuck playing politics between a friend, a reluctant new Primarch, and a dried-up, bigoted dalatrass. Her head was pounding and her nerves were raw.  
The sight that met her when her cabin door slid open went a long way toward soothing those raw nerves. Thane, looking positively delicious and absolutely healthy, knelt at the foot of the steps wearing nothing but a leather collar and a look of serenity. His eyes shifted from the fish tank where he'd been watching the jellyfish native to Kahje to her as she stepped inside and the corner of his mouth lifted in a pleased smile. That tiny movement was enough to send a wave of relief trickling through her. Home. She was home. 

He waited where he was until she approached him and then leaned forward gracefully to accept her hand atop his smooth head as he swiftly untied the laces of her boots. "How was your summit, Siha?" he asked. "You look...stressed."

She sighed and stroked the broad scales covering his scalp as she lifted a foot for him to remove her boot and he repeated the process on the other. "That's a pretty accurate assessment," she said. "Wrex is demanding the impossible. The dalatrass is furious. The Primarch is cooperative but still refusing to help Earth until he has the krogan. What should have been a simple mutual aid arrangement is now yet another demand for me to perform magic. I'm running out of rabbits, Thane."

"Rabbits, Siha?" he asked with a curious tilt to his head.

"Old Earth magic trick," she said. "A popular illusion was for a magician to pull a rabbit out of a seemingly empty hat."

"I see," he said, stroking a hand over her calf and kneading gently. "And what is the name of this particular rabbit you are expected to produce?"

"A cure to the genophage," she said as she walked over to the bed and laid back on it with an arm over her eyes. "Gods, I have a headache."

"May I sit?" he asked. She nodded and felt the bed dip as he slid gracefully behind her. His fingers began to rub gentle circles over her temples. "Surely Urdnot Wrex would not ask this of you if he did not have reason to think it could be done. He is your friend. He would simply refuse if he had no intention of providing his assistance. He would not send you on a fruitless mission for his own benefit while your people die."

She explained to him about the females that had survived Maelon's experiments and the upcoming trip to Sur'Kesh to retrieve them. "A handful of fertile females is a far cry from a cure that can be disseminated among the general population, though, and I'm no scientist. Mordin said Maelon's research still needed years before it could show results. This isn't going to be a quick process regardless of who is working on it but I don't think it can be done without Mordin. I have to find him but I have no idea where to start. I can only hope there will be someone at the STG base who can get in contact with him."

"I can send out word among my contacts requesting information as to his whereabouts if you would like, Siha," he offered.

She smiled up at him. Gods, she loved that man. He was so good to her. "I have the Shadow Broker working on it. If her people can't find him, I doubt yours will but I'll keep that in mind. We need all the help we can get. I'm sure you'd like to see Mordin again, too."

"Yes," he said simply. "I owe Dr. Solus a great deal."

Thane tensed for only a breath when she rolled and sprung, pinning him to the bed. The tension flowed out of him as quickly as it came but it was enough to remind her what he was and how easily he could overtake her. Thane was the only person she had ever known whom she could say with absolute certainty could defeat her. He was faster, stronger, better trained, and his lethality was as much a part of him as his scales or his biotics. He loved that she accepted that about him. She loved that he could kill her in a heartbeat and yet she was absolutely and utterly safe in his hands. Not only that, but he chose to submit to her will, not because she had overpowered or forced him to do so or won some sort of physical contest but because he trusted her to guide him and keep him safe as well. Thane Krios, master of death and his own destiny, had put his life willingly into her hands. When he'd pledged his arm to her the year before, neither of them had suspected just how literal that vow was going to be. He belonged to her, heart and body and soul to do with as she wished. In return, she was completely and irrevocably his as well.

His eyes remained locked confidently on hers as he tilted his head back, baring his throat to her. She brought a hand up to trace the bright red vee of ribbed skin there. The hyoid bone in his throat prevented strangulation or asphyxiation unless one knew just how to do it but there were blood vessels there below the surface that made the throat almost as vulnerable in a drell as it was in a human. In addition, he knew that she knew how to strangle or suffocate him if she chose. He'd taught her how to do so. Her tongue followed the line her fingers had drawn and when her teeth nipped at the sensitive skin, he flexed and groaned her name. His absolute faith and trust in her was humbling.

His fingers came up to tangle in her hair as she nipped and licked her way down his throat and over his collarbone before drawing back to look at him. "Gods, you're beautiful," she breathed. His body looked as if it were carved from living emerald streaked with onyx. Her fingers traced the dark stripes that covered his body like a tiger before coming to rest against the paler green that shaded his rippling abdomen. She'd thought once that he was simply green and black. That was true as far as it went but it wasn't until she'd gotten his clothing off that she'd realized just how complex the color green could be. She felt dull and bland by comparison. There was nothing uniform about his coloration from the macro to the micro details. Even his individual scales ranged in shade from mint to lime to moss, emerald to jade to chartreuse. Blue had been her color once and objectively she'd have said that Kolyat's turquoise was prettier but that would have been before she'd learned a proper appreciation for green. It wasn't just his sculpted physique or his jeweled scales, the liquid dark pools of his eyes, or the strength in his defined muscles that made him beautiful to her. It was his peace, his kindness, his intellect. It was his strength and his vulnerability, his openness and his reserve. It was the way he killed without hesitation and yet went out of his way to protect innocents. His contradictions fascinated her.

She hated that there were people who would see him on his knees before her and automatically think him weak, people who couldn't see that he was the one who truly held the power. He submitted to her of his own free will and at any time he could revoke that consent. He didn't do it because she was smarter than he. She wasn't. He didn't do it because she was stronger than he. She wasn't. He did it because something in her called out to something in him and he answered. He allowed her to do the things she did. It was like having a harvester on a leash. It was still a fucking harvester.

"I am not sure I want to know what is running through your mind at this moment," he said as she bent down to lick the creamy scales at his waist. His hands clenched in her hair and the muscles in his abdomen tightened under her tongue.

"Mmm. I was mentally comparing you to a Reaper," she said. "In the best way possible, of course."

"There is no 'best way' to be compared to a Reaper," he said drily and she rewarded his snark with a hard bite on the inside of his thigh which drew a gasping moan from his lips. She surged up his body and pinned his hands above his head, loving the way his naked body writhed against her clothed one. She saw the flicker of unease in his eyes as she fitted the inhibitor cuffs around his wrists and affixed them to the bolt she'd secured to the bulkhead. Little made him feel more helpless than having the use of his hands taken away from him and she used that to her advantage. She'd had Tali and Garrus design these cuffs especially for Thane and, so far, he hadn't been able to figure out how to remove them. She'd even allowed him to examine them outside of play and attempt to get around him. She had no doubt that he would eventually overcome them but he hadn't been able to yet and, for the moment, this was the most reliable way to confine him.

Shepard loved seeing his unease, not because she wanted him to be afraid of her but because she wanted him to give her his fear and entrust her with it. Drawing fear from someone for whom death was an acceptable outcome and pain meant less than nothing, however, was easier said than done. His deepest fears primarily revolved around her own safety and well-being and she would never use those against him. She also refused to play with his fear of being unable to breathe. That was one that had far too many real connotations to both of them. There were still a few things that both frightened him and didn't cross the line from mind fuck to psychological torture and she intended to use them to the fullest. True loss of control over himself was the greatest and she planned to milk every drop of it from him.

His eyes widened further as she placed a second set of cuffs, these made from a stiff black leather, around his ankles and affixed them to the foot of the bed. She had never removed his mobility so fully and she gloried in having him entirely at her mercy. When it felt as though everything in her world was spinning wildly out of her grasp, these moments grounded her. She would save the galaxy but he would save her.

The key with Thane was to ease into it. If she jumped in too quickly, his training would take over and he would resist in a way that made his surrender unpleasant for both of them. She was limited in the methods she could use to provide him with intense sensation due to the thickness of the skin below his scales and the density of his muscle. With a human partner, she might use impact toys but those had little effect on him. She'd learned that, while he could tolerate anything she asked of him, he was too well-versed in resistance for pain play to produce the endorphins that made it pleasurable. She could use intense sensation in ways he would enjoy but he was not a masochist. The most effective route was through his mind. To that end, she had learned him to the depths of his soul.

His first orgasm was always the most difficult to obtain as he fought it. He'd trained from puberty to be in control of his sexuality rather than allowing it to control him and he had been the one in charge with Irikah. His own pleasure was secondary and came more from what he was able to draw from his partner rather than his physical reactions. Therefore, she had to first break down the boundaries that he built out of habit in order to reach him. If she reached her pleasure first without that being the express intent of the exercise, then he won and his own release was less important.

She mapped his body with fingers and nails and tongue and teeth, enjoying the sensation of his cool, smooth scales against her mouth. She'd built up a tolerance to his venom that caused it to simply heighten her senses and result in a mild synesthesia on occasion rather than the full-blown hallucinations she'd experienced in the beginning so she wasn't worried about losing her own control from exposure to his skin.  
He'd told her once that he felt every touch of her hands and mouth like a brand and she saw nothing that would make her think that had changed over time. He still reacted to her touch as if it were the first time. She glanced up his beautiful body to find his eyes on her. Seeing her was as grounding to him as having him at her mercy was to her.

She allowed him the comfort for now and he responded to the quirk of her lips with an arrogant smile of his own. He knew that she found his body irresistible and felt no self-consciousness with her. He was aware of his appeal to others--drell males were as desirable to other species as asari though their rarity made them less popular as companions--and utilized it to his benefit. It was simply another tool and not one for which he felt any particular pride as he'd done nothing to gain that edge beyond the physical training which he'd have done regardless of his appearance. Nature had made him beautiful. He had honed himself into a weapon.

When she finally took him into her mouth, his groan reverberated through the cabin and she could see his muscles tremor as he struggled not to thrust up into her. She worked him until his fists were clenched and his needy purr vibrated the roof of her mouth before withdrawing and leaving him panting. She slowly removed her clothing and was gratified to see the way his eyes drank in every inch of her skin as it was exposed to him. She leaned forward to run her tongue along the edge of his frill but was careful not to allow any other part of herself to touch him.

"You're about to see why I've ensured that you can't move. We're going to try something new tonight," she murmured to him. "You know your safeword. Use it if you need but remember that I won't harm you."

"Yes, Siha," he said, giving her a look of curious anticipation.

She double-checked her safety precautions before straddling his waist and running her nails down his chest. He hissed and she saw his fists clench. It took time and effort to get his body this sensitized but it was worth it. The plan she had in mind for tonight was one she'd been working on for months. She'd had far too much time on her hands while under lockup and, once she'd realized that they hadn't deactivated the combat capabilities of her omni-tool--though they'd cut off all outside communications; no one could say she understood the Alliance's priorities--she'd begun to get creative.

Shepard never tried anything new on him that she hadn't first practiced on herself. She was more physically sensitive than he was so as long as she could handle it, then she knew he could as well. It also gave her at least a vague idea of what he was experiencing and, as she wasn't a masochist either, told her whether something was just intense sensation or actual pain. If it got her endorphins going, she wouldn't try it with him. If it set adrenaline flowing, then she would. She had been practicing and perfecting this particular trick for the majority of the time she'd been in lockup. Vega had come to think that she was insane after the first few times he'd brought her the requested medigel but had actually been somewhat impressed by it once she'd gotten it right and had demonstrated it on herself. Of course, she hadn't let on what her strange parlor trick was actually going to be used for. She simply claimed that she was learning to control her tech more minutely. He might have bought it.

When her palm began to glow, Thane's eyes darted from her hand to her face. He wasn't expecting this. She allowed her omni-tool to get warm but not enough to burn before running it across his torso. "Do you intend to brand me, Shepard?" he asked in a tone that was almost amused enough to cover his nerves. "I'm afraid that isn't very practical with drell."

"No branding," she assured him. "How well can you feel this?"

"I'm designed to absorb heat, Siha. That is actually quite relaxing and not at all what I had expected," he said. "That makes me wonder where you will go next as I know this is, quite literally it seems, only the warmup."

"You think too much," she said, tracing his chest with her fingertip. "I'm going to fix that. Don't inhale." He complied and she snapped her fingers. Her name bloomed on his lower chest in perfect drell script made from glowing orange flame. She registered the sight of it and his trembling body as she wiped her hand over it, smothering the flames. "Pretty," she said with a smile.

He looked up at her with a shocked expression and she couldn't stop herself from claiming his lips with her own. His tongue swept into her mouth and their groans mingled together. When she finally pulled back, he said, "That was...both terrifying and perhaps the single sexiest thing anyone has ever done to me."

"So you liked it?" she asked with a grin. Gods, she loved it when he gave her his fear. She knew he was wary of fire. His people had not relied on it in the way humans had for warmth and light. It was a destructive force to them rather than one that preserved as much as it destroyed. It would have taken much longer to actually burn his scales or even reach the point of pain for him but the point had been for him to see it, register the sight and what she had done, and for it to be gone before he had time to react in a truly negative way.

When he nodded his consent, she continued. She used her hands to spread the gel-like fuel in almost impossibly thin layers and created both messages and shapes which she then lit and put out with her hands. She left each one alight for longer than the one before until she could see him beginning to wonder just how far she would go. She pushed until she saw his body tense and his conscious effort to regulate his breathing and remain calm and then she rolled her body onto his, smothering the flames with her own torso, and kissed him thoroughly before sitting up and lowering herself onto his straining erection.

He shouted her name and bucked up into her. "Oh, fuck, Siha!"

She rode him hard and fast, the way they both liked until she heard a snap and felt his knees raise to her back. "You broke my cuffs!" she exclaimed without breaking her rhythm. She'd thought the leather was thick enough to withstand his abuse but apparently she'd underestimated its strength--not his, never his--and should have gone with a stronger material. Honestly, though, she thought it was incredibly hot that he had broken through his restraints. It told her that he was already closer to the edge than she'd expected. The distinct lack of apology as he used his newfound mobility to thrust harder up into her was another clue as to how far gone he truly was.

"Siha, please!" His tone was desperate. He was begging not for release but for the reassurance only she could give.

She leaned forward and said, "Let go, Thane. I've got you," and then clamped her teeth around his throat.

He let out a shout and she heard metal scream and then the room flipped around them. "Well, that's one way to get around the cuffs," she gasped as she realized he'd torn the hook from the bulkhead. Gods, his strength was amazing. She looked up at him and felt a renewed surge of desire as she took in the feral gleam behind his dark eyes. He was well and truly beyond control now, trusting her to hold him together and not allow him to harm her. He pounded into her, his hips slamming home into hers as he hilted himself inside of her again and again. She felt his teeth bury themselves in her shoulder and reveled in the unrestrained violence as her nails scored his back and split the skin between his scales. "Harder, Thane," she ordered and he complied instantly.  
She clung tightly to the last bits of her own control as she tightened just so around him and heard his muffled shout as his entire body tensed with the force of his orgasm. His triggered hers and she bucked hard beneath him as waves of pleasure engulfed her and stole the breath from her lungs.

He collapsed on her for a moment before rolling them again and looping his cuffed arms around her. "Thank you, Siha," he breathed.

"I love you, Thane," she murmured against his chest.

"And I, you."

Her hands on him now were gentle as she stroked his now-pliant muscle and he floated in the afterglow. She told him how beautiful he was to her, how strong and bright and worthy he was and she reveled in the rolling purr of satisfaction that rumbled in his chest. She loved taking him to the edge and tumbling over it with him but it was this, the calm after the storm, that she loved the most. These moments were the ones where she knew that he was fully at peace and she could find him there and experience it for herself alongside him. These were the moments in which their bond was tested, proven, and simply enjoyed. He belonged to her and she to him and she imagined that she could feel their souls entwined.

When she felt his lips curve against her hair, she lifted her head and smiled at him. "Welcome back," she said warmly as she tapped in a command on her omni-tool and the cuffs fell away with a click.

"Fire, Siha?" he asked with a smile of his own. "How long did it take you to perfect that one?"

"Five months, I think," she said.

"I had attributed the burn scars on your legs to the escape from Earth but now I think that not all of them were acquired that way."

"No," she agreed. "Not all of them. Worth it, though."

"Gods forbid you ever develop a gunplay fetish," he said drily. "I am afraid you would never survive it."

She bit his chest lightly and then smoothed over it with her tongue as his arms tightened around her. "Brat," she teased.

"Only for you, Siha. Only for you," he said and kissed her.


End file.
